An Original Intention In her decision in the Harvard race case, released in September, Judge Allison Burroughs observed that “it was always intended that affirmative action programs be limited in duration.” The judge was right. That was the intention, as Justice O’Connor demonstrated long ago. In her opinion for the Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger, still the leading race-based admissions case, O’Connor repaired to first principles in quoting a 1984 case, Palmore v. Sidoti, specifically its teaching that “a core principle” of the Fourteenth Amendment was “to do away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race.” Accordingly, …

Recently the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal was kind enough to ask me to write for them on the decision last month in the Harvard case, in which the school is accused (rightly, in my view) of discriminating in its admissions against Asian Americans.  Here’s what I wrote for them. In a long-awaited decision, federal trial judge Allison Burroughs has ruled that, while Harvard does consider a student’s race in determining who gets in and who doesn’t (“the use of race in and of itself is admitted”), nonetheless Harvard is not breaking the law. That outcome was not …

Race Should Not Be a Factor I don’t usually spend time looking at opinion surveys. But a poll out the other day caught my attention on account of its main finding, which is that race should not play any factor in college admissions. This was the work of the Marquette Law Poll, a nationwide survey of voters sponsored by the Catholic University law school, and the arresting number is 77, as in the percent of voters who oppose Supreme Court decisions upholding the use of race as one factor in deciding which applicants get in. Preferences typically poll well—I mean …

Next month, voters in the state of Washington will decide whether to leave in place the ban there on discrimination and preferences in their state and local government contracting, employment, and education that they overwhelmingly endorsed in a similar ballot initiative in 1998.  Just before that election, the Center for Equal Opportunity published a study that documented the extent to which such discrimination was found at the University of Washington and Washington State University.  We have recently sent this study to some of our allies out there, noting that it is fair to point out to the voters this time …

How About 10 Percent? Reading the district court’s decision upholding Harvard College’s use of race in its admissions program, I was struck by Judge Allison Burroughs’ treatment of the term “critical mass.’’ It entered the affirmative action vocabulary in 1992, when the University of Michigan Law School adopted a new admissions policy that would use race to admit a more diverse student body. Barbara Grutter sought entry to the school but was turned down. She sued the law school, ultimately losing in the Supreme Court in 2003. That ruling, Grutter v. Bollinger, is the leading case on “consideration” of race …

For now, at least. A federal trial judge has ruled that, while race is considered by Harvard in determining who gets in and who doesn’t (“the use of race in and of itself is admitted”), and while the plaintiff group has standing in this case to challenge the resulting discrimination against Asian Americans (in line with an earlier ruling), nonetheless Harvard is not breaking the law. The outcome was not surprising, and the judge’s 130-page opinion is unlikely to change many minds or alter the expected trajectory of the case to the Supreme Court. The judge found, “Race is only …